When to Use Text Message Marketing

Like any marketing strategy, text messages are best utilized at certain times and under certain conditions.

We've already established some of the best practices. Now, let's consider some conditions when you should send texts to your potential customers.

1. Automatic Responses to Sign-Ups

Auto-responses are one of the best ways for your company to immediately follow up with a new lead.

These responses can contact your potential customers and say any number of things. The most common are simple thank-yous and confirmations.

But you can also use auto-responses to tell someone that they're automatically enrolled in your text message marketing campaigns, giving them the chance to stay in your marketing funnel or withdraw from texts.

That allows your customers to have greater control over how you communicate with them, which improves your relationship with each individual.

Plus, sending automatic responses to sign-ups tells your potential customers that you're serious about working with them one-on-one. You want to give them the personalized experience that'll meet their needs, and they can respond however they'd like.

This gives your marketing recipients much greater control over how they interact with your company.

2. Customer Surveys

If you want to know that your business is satisfying your customers, you can ask them via text.

These surveys don't have to be extensive, and you can either send someone a link to website or allow them to respond directly to your text.

The link option works great for longer surveys, and the direct response option is perfect for one-question surveys.

A good example of a long survey would be a questionnaire about the specifics of someone's experience at your business. Did they feel respected? Were they satisfied with the results? How did they feel about the prices?

A short survey may be something like “How would you rate your last experience with us?” and let recipients respond with a number between one (poor) and five (perfect).

Long surveys are great if you're looking for detailed information, but you probably won't get a lot of participants since they take more time.

On the other hand, short surveys are great for engaging a wide audience, but you don't get the specifics about what made someone happy unless they go out of their way to tell you.

Both surveys have their place, and if you find that not everyone responds to the same surveys, you can split them into groups and tailor your communication accordingly.

So if you have a handful of ultra-responsive customers who fill out detailed surveys, you can send them links to new surveys to hear what they think about your business.

And if you have lots of single-response customers who don't have a lot of time on their hands, you can send them single-question surveys to get an idea about your performance.

Both surveys are helpful, and when you use both at the same time, you enjoy both of their strengths while compensating for their weaknesses.

3. Supplements to Email Marketing

You can complement your email marketing campaign with texts in a number of different ways.

First, you can use it to double-check any non-responsive emails in your list. So if there's anyone who hasn't opened one of your emails in a long time, you could send them a text to see if they're still interested and give them the chance to unsubscribe.

That may not sound like a great way to get new customers, but it can actually help. You're making sure your email list only has active, interested recipients in it, and you're allowing customers to unsubscribe from your future messages. It's a win-win.

4. Testing New Site Features or Apps on Mobile

One of the biggest advantages of text message marketing is the ability to test new business or website features right on your customers' phones. The best way to do that is to send a testing offer to your customers — or an exclusive sample of your customers — to see what they think about your new functionality.

You can also use texts to alert your customer base about apps or tools that you create. The only condition to remember in this situation is that you can only market to users who have a phone that's compatible with the app you created.

For example, if you created an app for Android, you shouldn't market it to iPhone users since they wouldn't be able to access it.

Likewise, if you made something for Apple's App Store, you shouldn't tell Windows Phone users that they can try it out.

Or, to avoid that issue, you can create apps for multiple mobile operating systems, which ensures 100% of your customer base can access, utilize, and review your app after it's made.

That gives you a valuable audience that's eager to test your new app and send you feedback. It's also a great way to generate buzz for software before you officially release it, ensuring you can get an even larger audience for your app once it's fully ready.